Spencer Edwin Halflight
In 1939 Spencer was living and working in Nottingham has a food distribution clerk. He had been born and grew up in Great Yarmouth.
- Family History
- Military history
- Extra information
- Photographs
Son of Samuel Daniel and Alice Halfnight of Great Yarmouth.
Siblings: Hilda (1897), Olive (1898), Edna (1905), Hubert (1908) and Norman (1909)
He married Joan Mary Audrey Holman in 1940.
In 1939 Joan was living with her parents at 9 Clipstone Road, Mansfield and she was working has a shorthand typist.
HMS Prince of Wales, a battleship. On 25th September 1941 the Prince of Wales and an escourt destroyer left home waters for Singapore, where she was due to rendezvous with HMS Repulse and the aircraft carrier Indomitable. However Indomitable ran aground off jamacia. The Prince of Wales joined Repulse at Colombo Ceylon on 30th November and they reached Singapore on the 2nd of December.
On the 19th December the prince of Wales and Repulse where spotted by the Japanese off Kuantan at 02:11. At 11:00 thet started their attack by air and by submarine. Both Prince of Wales and Repulse were put under sustained attack and by 12:23 the Repulse had been sunk. The Prince of Wales had been hit by a 1100lb bomb which had penetrated to the main dack before exploding. At 13:15 the order to abandon ship was given and at 12:20 she listed to port and sunk stern first.
508 men were lost from the Repulse and 327 from the Prince of Wales.
William Lacey of Mansfield also died in the sinking of the Prince of Wales
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